As is known in the art, there is a trend to conduct business over public computer networks. For example, a user may want to make a purchase or conduct a transaction over a public computer network such as the Internet. To do so, the user accesses the public network through a network node (e.g. a web site) and makes a purchase/transaction request with a particular vendor who is also coupled to the public network via a web site. In response to the user requests, a vendor may request user information such as user name, address, social security number, credit card number, etc.
To continue the transaction, the user responds to the vendor by entering the requested information (e.g. name, address, social security number, credit card number, etc. . . . ) at the web site and transmitting the information to the vendor. After receiving the information, the vendor then completes the transaction.
One problem with this approach, however, is that if a user wants to make additional transactions or requests, the user is often required to re-enter the same information for each request. This can lead to mistakes being made in entering the information. This is true even if the information only needs to be entered once in response to a single request. Furthermore, there may be problems maintaining particularly sensitive user information (e.g. credit card number, social security number, etc.) in secret.
For example, to access information on an Internet home page (e.g. the IBM home page on the Internet), a user must specify via a menu selection the language (e.g. English, French, German, etc. . . . ) in which the user would like to communicate. Such information must be re-entered each time the same user accesses the IBM home page.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a technique for allowing a user to specify particular information once and have the information be used each time the user accesses any site on the public network.